In the hyper-masculine right-wing internet community known as the “manosphere,” few figures loom larger than Jesse Lee Peterson.
The Los Angeles-based pastor and online radio host has become a star in conservative media in part for his demands that men and women return to his unorthodox version of traditional gender norms. Peterson’s ideas about gender can be eccentric even by the standards of his compatriots, with Peterson claiming that a woman who orgasms during sex is somehow “becoming a man,” a practice he frowns upon.
Peterson has also emerged as one of the right’s most vocal anti-gay figures. He’s claimed that people who march in gay pride parades are the children of Satan, and that “radical homosexuals are evil.” He’s become a regular sparring partner for progressive YouTube personalities, telling online commentator “Destiny” in 2020 that he didn’t understand why his debating partner was openly bisexual.
